WickedFire founder Jon F just announced the beta launch of the affiliate marketing forums’ resource areas earlier today.

WickedFire is virtual home to several experienced affiliate marketers (as evidenced by threads like “Post Your Stats“, including a purported $16 million buyout offer for the 8 month old forum.

As of today, the forum is rated at PR4, Alexa 1,879
Jon, famous (or depending on your point of view, infamous) for posting $80,000 screenshots of his earnings on SitePoint, had announced on his blog that he’d be stepping down from affiliate marketing earlier this month. (The End Of An Era – Jon Resigns From Affiliate Marketing As An Affiliate)

WickedFire looks set to eventually to become a community portal and information resource site for affiliate marketers.

It looks set to leverage on the hands-on experience of members and affiliate managers by giving the ability to rate affiliate networks (and possibly individual programs) in real time.

Going beyond just affiliate marketing, WickedFire aims to encompass products and services affiliate marketers will typically use, including hosts, domain registrars, design firms, programming firms and content writers among others.

First off the line will be a directory, where members can relate their experience with an affiliate network, with the network given the right of response to reply to the feedback.

The WF Resources team, comprising Jon, Brandon and Ben, have worked hard to include two interesting elements into the project:

• Trust and Credibility

If successful, this will be one of the better implementations of the “Reputation” I’ve seen on a vBulletin forum.

From what’s being said, you’d need to achieve a certain access level before being able to access some of WF’s advanced features.

It’s certainly good impetus to create quality content and be likewise rewarded by your peers with reputation points.

Creating quality content sometimes boils down to doing some research on the web and perhaps wikipedia, synergizing the information into something useful and practical and posting the information online.

• Free

Given that what Jon and the WF gang proposes to provide is equivalent to what others might charge upwards of $50 to a few hundred dollars a month for free for affiliates (revenue will be generated from advertising dollars), the initiative certainly has the potential to become a major hub for affiliate marketers.

WF’s Resource Area Beta launch is expected to be anytime from tomorrow to Sunday.

Jon will also be presenting at a session at Affiliate Summit West.

For more information, check out: WickedFire Resource Area – Beta (Contains some strong language)